SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 C3
BY JUSTIN JOUVENALA Virginia man has been
charged in the shooting of two
Frederick police officers during
an incident in which the suspect
was injured as well, Maryland
police said Saturday.
Dominique Lamarr Lewis, 25,
of Hampton faces two counts of
attempted first-degree and
s econd-degree murder, first-
degree assault and use of a fire-
arm in the commission of a felo-
ny, state police said. Lewis re-
mains under guard in a Baltimore
hospital, where he was taken for
treatment of gunshot wounds
that he sustained in the incident.
State police said Saturday that
a preliminary investigation has
determined the encounter began
shortly before 12:45 p.m. Friday,
when Frederick police officers re-
sponded to a call for a suspicious
armed man.
Officers found Lewis, who had
a gun, sitting on an electrical box
near the intersection of Waverley
Drive and Key Parkway, state po-
lice said. They approached Lewis
and asked him to show his hands,
but Lewis ignored their requests
and avoided contact with officers,
authorities said.
Lewis then began walking
away from the officers, before
abruptly turning and firing at
them with a .45-caliber handgun,
state police said. The two officers
returned fire, striking Lewis and
leaving him incapacitated, state
police said. The officers and sus-
pect all received gunshot wounds
to the torso.
Frederick police officers Kris-
ten Kowalsky, 32, a nine-year vet-
eran of the force, and Bryan Sny-
der, 43, who had been with the
department for two years, along
with Lewis were airlifted to a
nearby hospital to be treated for
their injuries. The officers were
released Friday night.
State police said they have yet
to determine a motive for the
shooting, but the investigation is
continuing.MARYLANDMancharged inshooting of2 o∞cersTHE DISTRICT
15-year-olds charged
i n string of car crimes
Two male teenagers from
Prince George’s County have
been arrested in connection
with a series of robberies, car
thefts and carjackings in recent
weeks in the District, D.C. police
said Friday.
A 15-year-old was charged in
a total of 17 offenses, including
seven armed carjackings and six
armed robberies in which cars
were taken, the police said.
Another 15-year old was
charged in the same six
robberies and four of the
carjackings, police said.
Both youths were charged in
two thefts, police said. In those
cases, vehicles were unoccupied
when taken, according to police.
— Martin Weil
Police: Fatal shooting
appears accidental
A man killed in a shooting
Wednesday night in Southeast
Washington apparently was
struck by a bullet fired
accidentally by a neighbor,
according to D.C. police.
The victim was identified as
Harold James, 66.
Police said the shooting
occurred inside an apartment in
the 2300 block of Good Hope
Road SE. Dustin Sternbeck, a
police spokesman, said James
was lying on a bed when a bullet
fired in the apartment below
struck him.
Sternbeck said a man told
police that he had been cleaning
his gun when it fired. The
spokesman said the man, who
was not identified, had a valid
permit for the firearm.
Police have not filed the
charges in the case but said the
investigation continues.
— Peter Hermann
MARYLAND
Court extends filing
deadline for primary
Maryland’s highest court late
Friday delayed the filing
deadlines for the June
gubernatorial primary as it
considers legal challenges to the
legislative redistricting map
approved by the General
Assembly last month.
The Maryland Court of
Appeals extended the filing
deadline from Feb. 22 to March
- The deadline to withdraw a
candidacy was also pushed
back, from March 4 to March 24.
The order, signed by Chief
Judge Joseph M. Getty, affects
anyone who wants to run for
local, county or state offices. The
delay could lead to more
candidates running for office
and also provides more time for
gubernatorial candidates to get
their message out to voters
before deciding whether to drop
out of the race.
The action comes as the court
weighs four challenges to the
redrawn legislative maps.
— Ovetta Wiggins
LOCAL DIGESTResults from Feb. 12
DISTRICT
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DC-4: 1-8-5-7
DC-5: 4-7-6-8-4
Night/DC-3 (Fri.): 6-1-2
DC-3 (Sat.): 9-9-0
DC-4 (Fri.): 1-1-6-1
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MARYLAND
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Bonus Match 5 (Fri.): 1-5-11-19-2333
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Bank a Million: 15-21-25-29-33-40 **34
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For late drawings and other results, check
washingtonpost.com/local/lottery
LOTTERIESBY SPENCER S. HSU
AND JUSTIN GEORGEA U.S. appeals court on Friday
revived a lawsuit against Metro
by the family of a 35-year-old D.C.
lawyer who fell to his death from
a parapet at a subway station in
downtown Washington in Octo-
ber 2013, allowing relatives of
Okiemute C. Whiteru to seek
damages at trial.
The three-judge panel of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit re-
versed a lower court’s dismissal
from 2020 of the Whiteru family’s
case on the grounds of error. The
earlier decision by then-U.S. Dis-
trict Judge Ketanji Brown Jack-
son — later elevated to the D.C.
Circuit and now on President
Biden’s shortlist for a U.S. Su-
preme Court vacancy — relied on
the Washington Metropolitan
Area Transit Authority’s argu-
ment that Whiteru was intoxicat-
ed and contributed to his own
death, clearing it of any liability.
“This was error,” the appeals
panel ruled in a 12-page decision
written by Judge Robert L.
Wilkins and joined by Judges
Karen LeCraft Henderson and
David S. Tatel.
Under D.C. law, Metro and oth-
er “common carriers” have a duty
to take reasonable steps to render
aid to a passenger if it knows or
has reason to know that they are
injured, regardless of whether
they contributed to their own
injury, the appeals court ruled,
agreeing with the Whiteru family.
Video footage showed the law-
yer falling over a low concrete
parapet at the back of the plat-
form at the Judiciary Square sta-
tion about 1:15 a.m. on Oct. 19,
2013, landing in a trench-like pit
eight feet below. He suffered se-
vere injuries and fractured at
least one vertebra, but he was still
alive after his fall. The parties
agreed that he would have sur-
vived the accident had he been
discovered by 1:30 a.m. by station
personnel making one of several
scheduled inspections that night.
Instead, his body was discovered
by a commuter four days later.
“The Whiteru Estate argues
that WMATA is not entitled to
summary judgment on the negli-
gence claim because there are
genuine factual disputes regard-
ing whether WMATA breached itsduty to aid Mr. Whiteru after he
negligently injured himself. We
agree,” the appeals court said.
“We cannot uphold a summary
judgment order where a reason-
able jury could conclude that
WMATA breached such a duty, so
we reverse and remand with re-
spect to the Whiteru Estate’s neg-
ligence claim.”
Whiteru’s parents, Cameroon
and Agnes Whiteru, and their
lawyers declined to comment, at-
torney Kobie Flowers said. Metro
spokesman Ian Jannetta declined
to comment, saying, “We are un-
able to comment on active or
pending litigation.”
According to both sides and
surveillance video cited by the
court, Whiteru was heavily intoxi-
cated when he exited a train and a
station turnstile about 12:45 a.m.
About 22 minutes later, at 1:07
a.m., Whiteru returned to speak
with an on-duty station manager
at the information kiosk at the
mezzanine level, and she helped
him reenter the paid area of the
station, the opinion said.
Video footage showed Whiteru
walking down the stationary es-
calator steps, stumbling on the
last few stairs, falling and lying on
his back for about 3½ minutes
before rising, according to the
opinion. He pulled himself up to
lean on a nearby parapet wall, but
he lost his balance after possibly
trying to sit on the wall. He fell
headfirst over it and into the gap
between it and the station wall,
video cited by the court showed.
The sides agreed the station
manager under standard operat-
ing procedures was supposed to
perform routine inspections of
the platform at 1:30 a.m., 2:30
a.m. and 3:15 a.m., but disputed
whether she, in fact, did so. The
station manager signed a check-
list indicating the checks were
performed b ut said she had no
recollection of conducting those
specific inspections.
Whiteru’s body had rolled un-
der the platform but was still
partially visible from above, Jack-
son ruled. It took four days before
a rider spotted his body and alert-
ed a station manager.
“On the disputed facts, a rea-
sonable jury could conclude that
[the station manager] failed to
perform the routine inspections,
or performed them unreason-
ably,” and that WMATA could beliable for failing to help Whiteru
“because it knew or had reason to
know that he was injured,” even if
he had been drinking, the panel
found.
The Whiteru family sued in- Jackson denied WMATA’s
first bid to toss out the case in
2017 but allowed the transit sys-
tem to raise the defense of con-
tributory negligence and argue
that Whiteru was intoxicated in
violation of District law. Jackson
then ruled in favor of dismissal in
August 2020, which Whiteru’s
family appealed.THE DISTRICTCourt allows suit by family of man who died in Metro stationThey were a pinnacle of the
progressive movement, run by
socially conscious people. And
yet, in Washington and many
other cities, they were
segregated.
“We like to balkanize in
America,” Jones said.
Syracuse professor Lasch-
Quinn, author of “Black
Neighbors: Race and the Limits
of Reform in the American
Settlement House Movement,
1890-1945,” said that some White
settlement houses closed rather
than integrate. Some staggered
their programming, with
different days for Whites and
Blacks. Some reestablished
themselves outside of the inner
city, following their original
White clients as they became
more socially mobile.
Said Lasch-Quinn: “If the
formal settlement movement
had made common cause at a
deeper level at the time, I truly
believe we would have had a civil
rights movement earlier. We had
all the makings of it — places to
gather, a desire for social change.
That didn’t happen, partly
because of a blindness in the
mainstream settlement
movement.”
In 1909, the Colored Social
Settlement had outgrown its
space and moved to a building at
16 L St. SW. Fernandis had left a
year earlier to organize a similar
house in Rhode Island. Later, she
was the first Black social worker
hired by Baltimore. She died in
1951.
During her time in the
District, Fernandis said, “I am
trying in my humble and limited
sphere to scatter a little sunshine
in the gloom which has pervaded
some of the homes in this part of
Washington.”— the subject of last week’s
column — were a response to
increased White immigration
from Europe. A similar
migration was happening within
the United States, as African
Americans left the rural South to
seek opportunity in cities such as
Washington.
The Colored Social Settlement
is thought to be the first in the
country for African Americans.
Its offerings ran the gamut.
There was physical training for
boys on Thursday nights and
Campfire Girls on Fridays. Music
classes — voice and instrumental
— were offered. Two days a week,
a branch of the public library
operated at the house.
The house offered “hot soup,
wholesome baked beans, good
coffee and digestible bread” at
affordable prices, noted a 1913
pamphlet. For women, there
were “Practical talks on the care
of the home and the family, as
well as lessons in sewing and
millinery.”
Day care was offered “for the
neglected children of women
who have to go out all day to
service or to do washing to
support their families.”
The letterhead of the Colored
Social Settlement featured not
just the name of the organization
and a list of its trustees, but a
map showing the area it served.
The map was highlighted to
show blocks with alley dwellings
— notoriously unhealthy areas —
and included the death rate: 17
per thousand for White
residents, 33 per thousand for
Black residents.
A doctor and nurse provided
free health care. Milk was
dispensed for babies.
There were more than 400
settlement houses in the U.S.Grimke and Mary Church
Terrell — “rather stalwart names
in Black Washington’s elite,”
Jones said.
Fernandis was born in 1863 in
Port Deposit, Md., and received
an undergraduate degree from
Hampton Institute and a
master’s from New York
University. She embraced a new
way to help the urban poor: the
settlement house, pioneered by
Jane Addams.
Settlement supporters didn’t
think charity should be
paternalistic — “Like, ‘Oh we’ll
help you out of pity,’ ” said
Elisabeth D. Lasch-Quinn,
professor of history at Syracuse
University. “Instead, they wanted
it to be ‘We’re actually going to
roll up our sleeves, go in the
toughest neighborhoods and
listen to our neighbors.’ That’s
what they called them:
neighbors, not members, clients,
customers or patients.”
Settlement houses such as
Friendship House on Capitol HillOn a September
day in 1904, a
Washington Post
reporter
accompanied
Sarah Collins
Fernandis as she
made her rounds
through
Southwest
Washington. This
impoverished area around South
Capitol and M streets SW — near
today’s Nationals Park — was
known then as Bloodfield, for the
violence and despair that
bedeviled the community.
Many African American
residents knew Fernandis as the
“bank lady.” She regularly went
door to door with an account
book and a tin box, inviting them
to entrust her with their nickels,
dimes and quarters. Fernandis
explained that if they saved their
money with her, it would be safe
when they needed it in an
emergency.
Wrote The Post: “As a receipt
and guarantee of future return,
she gives each contributor a
stamp for her stamp book, which
states the amount of the deposit.”
Fernandis was a rarity then: a
Black social worker. And she
didn’t just visit the
neighborhood. She lived in the
neighborhood in a building at
116 M St. SW that was home to a
groundbreaking organization
she helped found: the Colored
Social Settlement.
“She was amazing,” said Ida
Jones, a D.C. historian and the
university archivist at Morgan
State University.
And so was the Colored Social
Settlement. Among those who
served on its advisory board
were Anna Julia Cooper,
Roscoe Conkling Bruce, FrancisShe made an oasis for D.C.’s poorest Black residentsJohn
Kelly's
WashingtonAFRO NEWSPAPER/GADO/GETTY IMAGES
Sarah Collins Fernandis, a
social worker in the District, as
pictured on O ct. 20, 1945.RetropolisS0129-2x2.25Stories of the past, rediscovered.washingtonpost.com/retropolisBIG COUPONTHEYour
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